page_title: Fortitude Valley Police Station
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Fortitude Valley Police Station / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Fortitude Valley Police Station, Brisbane, Queensland, 1936 Fortitude Valley Police Station, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, in 1936. Erected in 1935 on the corner of Brookes and Wickham Streets, Fortitude Valley, the building is made of brick and sandstone. Two policemen stand at the front entrance. Wickham Street lies to the left, Brookes Street to the right.
context_page_description: Fortitude Valley Police Station is a heritage-listed police station at 119 Brookes Street, Fortitude Valley, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Raymond Clare Nowland and built from 1935 to 1936. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 24 June 1999.
context_section_description: The Fortitude Valley Police Station, a two-storey, L-shaped building in red facebrick with contrasting imitation stone facings in cream cement render, is a striking presence to the corner of Brookes and Wickham Streets, Fortitude Valley. The prominent tiled hipped roof is interrupted at the street corner and building ends by high narrow parapets with relieved quoining. Built around a courtyard containing a lavatory block and garaging to the rear, the Station is distinguished by a rendered portico entrance below an electric clock and rendered arched timber sash window within the high narrow parapet to the corner and striking rendered arches with prominent scroll keystones to the ground floor timber sash windows to both elevations.
   Single-height Doric columns flanked by rusticated pilasters beneath a dentilled cornice frame the main corner entrance portico which contains a set of terrazzo stairs and landing. The rusticated rendered arch with a prominent scroll keystone marks the side entrance portico to Wickham Street and is framed by rendered quoining to a high narrow parapet. Wrought iron ornamental grilles are provided to the ground floor street windows and ornamental iron gates to the arched vehicle entrance to Brookes Street. Overlooking Wickham Street from the first floor, an open porch framed by four half-height rendered Doric columns has an elegant, projecting oval balcony with decorative wrought iron balustrading. Bold brackets to lined roof eaves project over the plain flat arched sash windows to the first floor.
  The narrow high triangular parapeted rear entrance is accessed from the courtyard from a door sheltered by a moulded concrete awning supported by consoles which sits beneath the large semi-circular window which lights the main stairwell.
  The main corner entrance portico opens to a spacious main entrance lobby and hall around which the building hinges and from which central corridors run through each wing. Within the hinge, a dog leg timber stair connects to the first floor and a rear entrance opens to the courtyard beyond. The corridor to the Brookes Street wing opens to the vehicle laneway and the corridor to the Wickham Street wing terminates at a secondary dog leg timber stair. A side passage off this corridor connects via a battened gangway to the lavatory block in the rear courtyard.
  The main entrance lobby, hall floors, Wickham Street side entrance lobby, stair treads and landings in both stairwells are in pale gold and white terrazzo with black terrazzo borders to the floors. Two large plaster rosette pateras lie to the upper corners of the main lobby to each side of the elliptical moulded arch with large scroll keystone which separates the lobby from the hall. This opening has now been glazed and contains a glazed security door. The main stair doglegs off the hall and has a grooved silky oak handrail and 6"x6" stop chamfered silky oak newels with sunk necking and domed caps. Ornamental consoles decorate the flat arched openings to the stairwell. The plaster ceilings to the lobby and hall are decorated with a border figure of tied bundles of straight twigs. The Wickham Street entrance stairwell has similar detailing but is narrower.
  The offices on the ground floor are accessed from central corridors with semi-circular arched doorways to each end. The rooms retain their original spatial forms with some changes to doorways, some added internal glazing and refurbishment of tiling and fittings to the lavatory areas. The Constables' Day Room continues to be used for this purpose. The insertion of a mezzanine to the former Sergeant's clerks office has disrupted the form of this room. The dormitory accommodation on the first floor retains its spatial integrity and now accommodates offices and associated storage and interview rooms. The tilting fanlights to the bedrooms remain along with window and door joinery, architraves, skirtings, picture rails, fibrous cement ceilings with timber cover strips. The recreation room is now a locker room and opens to the balcony overlooking Wickham Street. The balcony 
caption: Police station, 1936
exif: {}